Pages

Friday, October 29, 2010

While he was going quietly nutty as a desk jockey in Cairo attached to Britian's Egyptian Survey in 1916 during World War I, T.E. Lawrence, not yet the legendary Lawrence of Arabia, worked on a project that became the symbolic first shot fired in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire.

He designed and printed postage stamps.

Titlepage (l).

The stamps were collected in a limited edition book in 1918, A Short Note on the Design and Issue of Postage Stamps Prepared by the Survey of Egypt for His Highness Husein Emir & Sherif of Mecca & King of the Hejaz. One of the most respected and desirable volumes of philatelic literature, it has become an extremely rare book; no copies have come to auction within the last thirty-five years.

While Lawrence is not overtly named within this slim volume, E.M. Dowson, British Director-General of the Survey of Egypt, takes note in the text to “El Emir ‘Awrunis of the Northern Armies of his Highness the King of the Hejaz at whose suggestion this work was undertaken."

Quarter Piastre
Half Piastre
One Piastre

Lawrence and Col. Ronald Storrs did the initial research on design. Of Storrs Lawrence wrote, "The first of all of us was Ronald Storrs, Oriental Secretary of the Residency, the most brilliant Englishman in the Near East, and subtly efficient, despite his diversion of energy in love of music and letters, of sculpture, painting, of whatever was beautiful in the world's fruit... Storrs was always first, and the great man among us" (Seven Pillars of Wisdom).

"Shortly after the Arab Revolution [i.e. when the Arabs declared their independence] we found that its success was being denied or blanketed by Enemy Press .., and we decided that the best proof that it had taken place would be provided by an issue of Hajaz postage stamps, which would carry the Arab propaganda, self-paying and incontrovertible, to the four corners of the earth. Sir Harry MacMahon [1862-1949], High Commissioner Egypt [1914-1916] was quick to approve, and the Foreign Office approved him. I had corresponded with King Hussein on the project, and he sent me by return of mail a design purporting to typify Islamic architecture, but to the layman indistinguishable from the Eddystone Lighthouse. I felt that this would never do, and wandered around with Lawrence round the Arab Museum in Cairo collecting suitable motifs in order that the design in wording, spirit and ornament, might be as far as possible representative and reminiscent of a purely Arab source of inspiration. Pictures and views were avoided, for these never formed part of Arab decoration, and are foreign to its art; so also was European lettering.

"It was quickly apparent that Lawrence already possessed or had immediately assimilated a complete working technique of philatelic and three-color reproduction, so that he was able to supervise the issue from start to finish."

Endpaper.

The stamps were issued in September of 1916, just prior to Lawrence's assignment to join the Arab revolt as British military liaison in October of that year. Not only were the stamps beautiful to the eye, they were, apparently, tasty on the tongue. Lawrence circulated a story, perhaps apocryphal, that he had used a strawberry-flavored glue which created a problem as the Arabs were buying the stamps simply to lick them.

"These were the first stamps to be produced by the Survey of Egypt and they clearly offered new challenges in their production. In 1918 this achievement was marked by the Survey printing and publishing one of the most attractive items in philatelic literature [our emphasis]. It describes aspects of the production process including paper, watermark, printing inks and cancellations. It continues with some of the associated correspondence with Hejaz and reprinted essays, proofs and color trials on twelve plates. A two page title page decorated in Arabesque designs, has affixed examples of all nine designs of stamps. E.D. Bacon (1860-1938) in a review [The London Philatelist, vol. 28, pp. 271-271, Dec. 1919] says 'The volume is unique in its way, inasmuch as it is, we believe, the first instance of an authentic and carefully prepared history of the production of a set of stamps being compiled and published by the actual makers thereof'" (Beech, David R. Survey of Egyptian Book 1918, p. 1).

Limitation-Presentation Leaf.

These stamps remain a poignant reminder of a dream lost in highly politicized sand. An assertion of Arab independence and desire to be rid of foreign influence - going postal, if you will, against the Ottomans before actual hostilities broke out - they remain a strong visual symbol of short-lived Arab unity, and of the subsequent betrayal by the British of their promise to respect the aspirations of the Arabs after the war was won.

__________

[LAWRENCE, T.E. (stamp designer and printer); Sir E.M. Dowson (text)]. A Short Note on the Design and Issue of Postage Stamps Prepared by the Survey of Egypt for His Highness Husein Emir & Sherif of Mecca & King of the Hejaz. El Quahira [Cairo]: [Survey of Egypt], 1918. First and only edition, limited to 200 numbered copies, this copy being no. 48. Quarto. 22 pp. White boards decorated in green. Decorative endpapers. Twelve plates. Text states "E.M.D./Winter 1917" on p. 22.

Scene From: The Book of the Dead of Hunefer.Egypt, c. 1280 BC(All Images Courtesy of The British Museum)

For Christians, it involves you and Saint Peter meeting at the Pearly Gates, watching a This Is Your Life-style recap of your good and bad deeds, and checking the final tally to see if you fly on up to dreamland in a private jet or take a one-way ride to perdition on the next Greyhound. For Egyptians, getting to heaven was a little trickier. The dead were reanimated in a kind of underworld purgatory, and faced a series of tests to determine their fate in the great beyond. When taking a pop quiz with such high stakes, a cheat sheet always comes in handy. So, enterprising scribes came up with Spells of Coming (or Going) Forth By Day, better known as The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Detail From: The Greenfield Papyrus.Egypt, c.1025 BC

The Book of the Dead, or more accurately the papyrus scroll, was the ancient equivalent of that "Don't leave home without it," credit card. According to John H. Taylor, curator of the ancient Egyptian funerary collection at The British Museum, "It is a kind of a combination of a spell, a talisman and a passport, with some travel insurance thrown in too." The British Museum has one of the most comprehensive collections of Book of the Dead manuscripts on papyrus in the world, and is opening a major exhibit of the scrolls on November 4, 2010. The show, Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, will include the first ever public display of the Greenfield Papyrus in its entirety. This manuscript, acquired by the museum in 1910, is the longest known book of the dead in the world, measuring 37 meters in length or just over 40 yards.

Detail From: The Papyrus of Nedjmet.Egypt, c.1070 BC

The papyri were made for well-to-do customers between 1500BC and 100BC. They were churned out by scribes, and were probably prefabricated as fill-in-the blank forms with the dearly departed's name written in at the point of purchase. A typical book cost half a year's wages, so the scroll was commissioned well in advance of the buyer's demise. Bargain basement scrolls were made with ink of any color, as long as it was black. Those with a bit more disposable income could spring for a scroll with red highlights, while the scrolls of ancient Egypt's high rollers were produced in glorious technicolor. Images decorating the text were de rigueur, and words took a backseat to art. The miniatures adorning the scrolls are flawless, while the accompanying text is filled with misspellings and omissions, and is sometimes even placed beneath the wrong image.

Detail From: The Greenfield Papyrus.Egypt, c. 1025 BC

The majority of the papyri in the British Museum's collection were acquired in the 19th century and were part of the loot diplomats, aristocrats, and scholars brought back from sojourns in the Middle East. Back in the 1800's fragile papyri were pieced together on brown backing paper, framed under glass, and shown in public under direct sunlight. That proved to be a huge mistake. "Sadly, the pigments were not as stable as we thought," says curator Taylor. "The terracotta color has faded to a pale brown and the yellows have whitened. So we now have to be very, very careful about what we show." In preparation for this new exhibition, the backing paper has been carefully peeled away using water and tweezers, and the scrolls will be shown in a controlled environment with special lighting. Because of their fragility, it is extremely rare for these manuscripts to be displayed, so this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to view them.

Detail From: The Greenfield Papyrus.Egypt, c. 1025 BC

Besides the Greenfield papyrus, which is done in black and red ink, also on display will be images from two of the full color scrolls in the museum's collection, the Papyri of Ani and Hunefer. These include iconic images of the trials the ancient Egyptians faced on their journey through the underworld. Many of these works will look familiar, as they are frequently reproduced in contemporary books.

The Weighing Of The Heart By Anubis.From: The Papyrus Ani,Egypt, c. 1275 BC

One of the most famous scenes is the weighing of the heart. Here the departed is led to scales watched over by Anubis, and his heart is weighed against a feather. A wicked heart will outweigh the feather, and be eaten by the monstrous devourer, Ammit. A pure heart balances the scales perfectly, and allows the deceased to continue his journey. The optimal outcome of the journey was to reunite with one's dead ancestors in paradise. "The family unit was crucial," explains Taylor. "You cared for your dead family because they were still there, on the other side. They could communicate with you and had power over you. So people wrote letters to the dead asking things like, 'Why are you still punishing me?'" (Some things never change...)

The Weighing Of The Heart By Anubis.From: The Greenfield PapyrusEgypt, c.1025 BC

Taylor says research has shown that not all Egyptians believed in the power of The Book of the Dead. Some ancient skeptics saw this religious insurance policy as nothing more than a crass scam to make a fast buck. Some believed the scribes pandered to the superstitious by refusing to depict any bad fortune befalling the deceased. No unpleasant events are ever recorded in the scrolls, for fear merely writing them down might make them come to pass. And each scroll included a final spell potent enough to get any dead man past the Egyptian version of the TSA full body scan. This ultimate "get-out-of-jail-free card" concealed all of the traveller's sins from the gods by making him invisible. But skepticism lost out to prudence in the long run. For 4,000 years The Book of the Dead remained the cornerstone of the Egyptian religion. The vast majority of the ancients thought it was better to shell out six month's pay and be safe, rather than risking a hellish eternity being sorry.

Scene From: The Papyrus Of Nakht.Egypt, c1350-1300 BC

The exhibition, Journey Through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, will continue through March 6, 2011 at the British Museum in London.__________

Thursday, October 28, 2010

It began just after the Fourth of July. Okay, Labor Day, but it seemed earlier. Orange and black bedecking every store, plastic jack-o-lanterns, skeletons, witches, and spiders everywhere you look, and candy. Bags and bags of expensive, delicious, bad-for-you candy that you were urged to “stock up on” (i.e., eat yourself) in time for America’s second favorite holiday, Halloween. Ghosties, ghoulies, and long-legged beasties are on the prowl. The goblin’s going to get you if you don’t watch out. All of these are traditional images of death, decay, and the eternal punishment that awaits the wicked. However, the only decay most modern celebrants are concerned about is tooth decay from the aforementioned candy. What’s scarier than a ghost? Your 10-year-old daughter dressed as Lady Gaga, that’s what.

Exercise all you want-- someday you'll die and look like this anyway

In ages past, people were also obsessed with images of skeletons and death, but not in a party kind of way. Unless a funeral is your idea of a party. (If you’re Irish or from the South, as I am, that may be so. Y’all just play along here, okay?)

In Medieval times, death was a daily companion. Women had a shorter average lifespan in those years because so many died in childbirth or from postpartum infections. Strep throat was often fatal. That cold could turn into pneumonia. And many, many children died every year from diseases for which vaccines now exist. Add to that the constant wars, the famine that resulted from a bad harvest, the plagues that wiped out a huge percentage of the population, and it must have seemed like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were on a permanent rampage.

"Nice service. I wonder if there'll be cake after."

Consequently, the Medieval Christian was urged to constantly contemplate their own mortality, and to consider what awaited them after death. The Book of Hours was the primary vehicle for personal devotion in those days--at least for those who could afford them. These prayer books contained set prayers, psalms, and readings to be observed throughout the day (the “Offices”), as well as psalms, special prayers to the Virgin Mary and the saints, and always The Office of the Dead, prayers to be said for the souls of the departed. It could be used at any time, but was especially to be observed on All Souls’ Day (November 2).

In the beautiful illuminated books of hours created in the Medieval era, most offices were accompanied by a small painting, called a miniature, on a religious subject. Most of these were scenes from the life of the Virgin, and were set in biblical times (though matters of costume might reflect recent fashions).

"Harry, would you be careful? We don't want to drop him in front of the mourners. Bad for business."

The miniature for the Office of the Dead was often a scene all too familiar to Medieval audiences: a funeral or burial. From a modern vantage point, they are interesting in that they represent depictions of ordinary life in Medieval times. Sometimes, it’s a nice, dignified funeral--a clutch of clergy, candles, a nice crowd of hired mourners (de rigueur at your better class of funeral), and the coffin draped in a discreet pall. Other scenes were more brutally frank: a couple of gravediggers wrestling a shrouded body into its final resting place.

Covering all the bases

If the artist were really ambitious, we might see a combination of favorite Office of the Dead themes: the funeral, the burial, the prancing skeleton, and Job, the faithful man afflicted by God, lying on his dung heap covered with boils. Now, you kids go to your room, look at that, and think about what you’ve done!

More subtle, yet I should think more effective for their intended purpose, are those miniatures that show someone eating, drinking, and making merry, but forgetting they will die, as in the interpretation of the parable of the rich man (Dives) and the beggar Lazarus, below.

Live it up today, burn tomorrow

Dives is shown opulently attired, enjoying a feast in his richly appointed home in the company of a beautiful woman. All the riches and pleasures of this world are his. The beggar Lazarus, covered in sores, pleads at the door for a few crumbs for the table, only to be shooed away by a horrified servant. Below, however, we see the eternal suffering that waits for Dives after death: he is chained, naked, writhing in flames, and further tormented by the vision he sees above him--Lazarus in heaven, accompanied by Abraham. The patriarch informs Dives that he had his rewards on earth, where Lazarus suffered greatly; now, Lazarus will have his reward in heaven, while Dives suffers. Forever. Bwahahahahaha!!!!

And let that be a lesson to those who would be stingy with the Halloween candy.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

BARING-GOULD, Sabine. The Book of Were-Wolves:
Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition.
London: Smith, Elder, 1865.
First edition.

"In many a distant village there exists the Legend of the Were-Wolf or Wolf Man...a legend of a strange mortal man with the hair and fangs of an unearthly beast...his hideous howl and dirge of death" (The Wolf Man, 1941).

In one of those distant villages, the sleepy little hamlet of Beverly Hills, CA, the legend has become reality. It is now the home of rare Were-Wolves.

A copy of the scarce first edition of Sabine Baring-Gould's classic, oft-reprinted, The Book of Were-Wolves, which recently surfaced after an absence of ten years' worth of full moons, was heroically captured in a life or death struggle by Mark Hime, proprietor of Biblioctopus, the bilaterally symmetric, multi-tenacled rare book business in Beverly Hills, who is now offering it just in time for All Hallow's Eve 2010.

CRANACH, Lucas. Werewolf (1512).

The Book of Were-Wolves was the first volume in English to be wholly devoted to the subject. Within, Baring-Gould collected the legends, folklore, and tales from many cultures over many centuries. It remains the primary reference on the subject simply because it has never been surpassed.

18th century engraving.

The last copy to come to auction, ten years ago, was, as Hime describes it, a fright, "a glue-repaired horror, damp-stained inside and out, a jump-into-the-wolf-pit-with-a-pork-chop-around-your-neck kind of copy," a condition statement that reads like a CSI report; all it lacks is a chalk outline.

German woodcut, 1722.

Rare book dealers are often asked about how they acquire material. Watch Mark Hime of Biblioctopus subdue, after violent struggle, the Were-Wolf in Beverly Hills:

What we bookmen do to snag good books...silver bullets, silver-topped canes; whatever it takes.
__________

BARING-GOULD, Sabine.The Book of Were-Wolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition. London: Smith, Elder, 1865. First Edition. Octavo. xii, 266 pp. Illustrated.

__________

Image of The Book of Were-Wolves binding courtesy of Biblioctopus.
__________
__________

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

SEARLE, Ronald. Slightly Foxed - But Still Desirable:Ronald Searle's Wicked World of Book Collecting.London: Souvenir Press, (September)1989. First edition.

Happy belated 21st birthday to Slightly Foxed - But Still Desirable, cartoonist and illustrator Ronald Searle's satire on book collecting, specifically the condition terminology typically seen and understood by the Illuminati but Esperanto to those outside the trade or hobby; it looks like English, it reads like English, but it might as well be Martian.

A little dog-eared but otherwise acceptable copy.

Illustrated throughout with thirty full-page color drawings, it remains as fresh, charming, and delightfully irreverent as when originally published. In celebration of its coming of age, Booktryst presents a selection of its caricatures with the original captions.

A little thumbed, otherwise attractive copy.

A nice, bright set.

Cracked but holding.

Evidence of some insect damage.

Early manuscript notes.

Generally a little loose.

Leather labels and intricate decoration.

Lovingly thumbed by former owner.

Name on fly.

Slight splitting of paste-down.

Stitching a little loose.

Tail-edge shaved.

Somewhat spotted, but otherwise desirable.

Some worming of the epoch.

Some light surface abrasion.

Copies of the trade edition are currently selling for around $100. Copies of the signed limited edition of 150 bound in leather, in fine condition, however, will set you back $1000.

Monday, October 25, 2010

In the Spring of 1970 a book from another planet fell to Earth. No one noticed.

In early 2010, Kevin Johnson, proprietor of Royal Books, a rare book shop in Baltimore, turned over a rock and discovered - lo and behold! - the alien book in question, The Space Reports,a narrative purportedly written by researchers from beyond our galaxy; their official report to HQ on Earthlings. He offered the volume in one of his catalogs and thus became, as far as I've been able to determine, the first dealer in the history of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America to offer a book under the rubric "(Nutcase)."

Yet is it really a nutcase book? Close, very, very close. But books based upon alien- and/or UFO-weirdness are as plentiful as the Octomom's ova. No, what sets this book apart from the pack and casts it into the sparkling firmament of nutcase lit. is the way it was printed. A laid-in slip from the publisher explains:

Some Kind of Nut

Like chillaxin’, the word nutcase has gotten a heavy workout within the last few years, used so indiscriminately that its true meaning has become lost and the word worn thin. It is often confused with and substituted for wing-nut, a subspecies of Homo Politico, recently flourishing on the far Right of the political spectrum but not exclusive to it. As my old friend from Texas, the self-proclaimed and proud Librarian to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, relentlessly enjoys pointing out to me, it was the far Lefties of the 1960s and their antics that were the real wing-nuts. There’s enough truth in her assertion that what remains are mirror images blind to recognizing their flip-side reflection.

What, then, constitutes a nutcase book?

Singularity and oddity. It can’t be the current flood of titles from Tea Partiers and Rightward media commentators. There are too many of them, too similar, and issued in huge print runs by mainstream publishers. By definition, a nutcase book cannot appeal to a large, popular audience. Possessing a strange title is not enough, nor, necessarily, a strange subject. The anonymously written How To Boil Water in a Paper Bag (1891) is out there but not so far that it is utterly implausible.

A nutcase book must be in a class by itself, possessing a certain j'nais se WTF? qualitythat sets it apart and screams, I am the power and the glory, I am truth, and I am so out there and outlandish that even Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner can nod their heads in agreement. In sum, a beyond the fringe book bouncing off the walls into a world of its own, whose very existence is just short of a miracle, issued in a small print run, and almost, if not completely, unnoticed by the population upon its publication by a publisher (often privately printed by the author) so small that they’re off the Publishers Weekly, or anyone else's, radar.

A New Genre of Collecting

Rare booksellers are often asked by budding collectors on a modest to moderate budget, What should I collect? The answer is, collect what interests you, preferably in an area that isn’t crowded; you are limited only by your imagination.

Sensing a latent collecting trend ripe for development, a few years ago I began to annoy my colleagues in the trade with the idea that we could add a lot of fun to book collecting if one of us assembled and offered for sale books reflecting the far, farther, and farthest shores of human thought, where, in the guise of rationality, lunacy took flight. Books with an essential loopy quality, relatively or completely unknown to the general public but that we, as old and rare booksellers, have had pass through our hands and consigned to the dead book pile, shelf-fillers with rigor-mortis, curiosities that no one is particularly curious about unless someone with a bent for the peculiar stumbles across them and is tickled.

BURR, Timothy. BISBA.
Trenton, NJ: Hercules Publishing Company, 1965.

BISBA is certainly one such. The author. Timothy Burr, presents his unique and utterly bizarre method for pegging a woman’s character by the shape and size of her breasts, the Burr Identification System of Breast Analysis. By means of his “gynecomammology” - breast science! - any woman’s true nature will be revealed and her behavior predicted by close examination and evaluation of her rack, a sort of mammarymancy of those out of the training-bra stage and into the full blossom of womanhood, however their blossoms have bloomed, for those stuck in adolescence, particularly Timothy Burr.

Recently, Garrett Scott, a rare book dealer in Ann Arbor, MI, independently in Jungian syncronicity with my own thoughts on the subject, rose to the challenge and issued a catalog chock full o’ nuts. Titled Printing and the Mind of Cranks in homage to the essential reference book based upon the celebrated 1963 exhibition, Printing and the Mind of Man(a survey of the most important and influential books of Western civilization), it features books that are the exact opposite, by authors who light up the word nutcase in flashing neon.

As Scott proclaims in his Introduction:

“To cleave fast to an opinion when it is neither popular nor profitable (nor even particularly plausible) should not doom an otherwise entertaining author to be forgotten, and one mission of this catalogue might be to give these few forgotten advocates of the hollow earth, or of novel schemes of perpetual motion, or of the historical evidence that the Garden of Eden was located in Michigan, or of the evident designs of the Illuminati upon our republic, or of the efficacy the Weltmer method of absent medical treatment, etc., etc., one more opportunity to make their cases before a sympathetic audience.”

Amen, brother.

The nutcase lit. of yesteryear remains as fresh and meshugah today as when originally foisted upon the public. A few highlights from Printing and the Mind of Cranks, with Scott’s notably and thoroughly well-researched descriptions gently edited for reasons of space:

Brutus. [pseud. of Samuel F. B. Morse].Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States. The Numbers of Brutus [pseud], Originally Published in the New-York Observer, Revised and Corrected with Notes, by the Author. New-York: Leavitt, Lord & Co. [et al.], 1835. First edition. “The writer entertaining these views has deemed it an imperative duty, at any sacrifice, to warn his countrymen, of a subtle enemy to the democracy of this country, and to conjure them as they value their civil and religious institutions, to watch the Protean shapes of Popery, to suspect and fear it most when it allies itself to our interests in the guise of a friend. Mistrust of all Catalogue Thirty that Popery does, or affects to do, whether as a friend or foe in any part of the country, is the only feeling that true charity, universal charity, allows us to indulge.”

The painter and inventor of the telegraph, Samuel F. B. Morse, was, in his youth, relatively neutral on the question of papists—at least until a visit to Rome in 1830 changed his views: During a papal procession a soldier struck Morse’s hat from his head and (as historian Ray Allen Billington notes) the “episode changed Morse’s point of view. Heretofore his artistic nature had led him to admire the beauty of Catholic ceremony; now he saw only the harshness of a despotic religious system. His trampled hat was to make him a life-long opponent of Rome.”

Vahey, J[ohn] W[illiam].The Visible and Invisible Worlds. By Rev. J. W. Vahey, Ridgeway, Wis. Milwaukee, Wis.: Hoffmann Bros., 1890. First edition. “I was further induced to write [this book] from the force of negative judgments I more than once expressed in controversies against conclusions deduced from speculation, which affirmed that, not only the bodies which form our solar system, but those that compose star systems, are inhabited by human beings. I was still further induced to write it, in order to furnish some of my readers with philosophical arguments through which they could refute the silly systems of agnostics, evolutionists, positivists, atheists, pantheists, materialists, communists, socialists and anarchists, which deny the existence of God, the omnipotent fiat that created the universe, complex man, the animal and vegetable kingdoms. After writing a few pages, I determined to give up the undertaking, owing to the difficult nature of the subjects I had to treat, but through perseverance I succeeded in my project.”

(Nautical Safety).The World’s Greatest Safety Device. It May Save Your Life, or the Life of a Relative or Friend. It May Make You a Fortune. (Tacoma: The Pacific Printing Company), [ca. 1915-1920?]. First edition. The investment prospectus for a “dry swimming suit,” an elaborate rubber and canvas contraption intended as a personal floatation suit for victims of shipwreck; the enterprising (and unhappily for prospective investors, anonymous) inventor includes a table of the royalties one might have expected had the ill-fated Lusitania but carried this novel invention—some $30,000. With illustrations of the complicated suit and its features (condensed food packets, roman candles), as well as the dark admonition, “WE ALL REMEMBER THE TITANIC.”

Warner, Captain S[amuel] A[lfred],Fair Play’s a Jewel: A Narrative of Circumstances Connected with my Mode of National Defence Against the Whole World. London: J. & W. Robins, Printers, Tooley Street; Sold by John Ollivier, [1849]. First edition. “I now submit my Narrative to the candid perusal of my readers. In it I have not advanced one word which I cannot substantiate and prove, if necessary. I have deemed it right to lay before the world, that my country may not have to say they were unacquainted with the facts previous to whatever course I may now think proper to adopt, so as to realise that for my inventions which I think I am entitled to, and which I was offered years ago, could I then have brought my mind TO DESTROY MY COUNTRY. Ingratitude may, however, wean even Patience and Patriotism"... The captain long maintained that he had secretly developed a novel “invisible shell” capable of immense destruction, the formula for which he was willing to allow the War Department to have in exchange for a mere £200,000.

Campbell, George.A Revolution in the Science of Cosmology: The Keystone to the Arch of Science. Topeka: Crane & Company, 1902. Second edition, preceded by Campbell’s 157-page privately printed Oswego, Kansas edition of 1900. A convoluted and somewhat muddled attempt to take what Campbell understands to be modern scientific thought and reconcile it to the Mosaic account of the creation. Campbell touches in part on the Symmes hollow-earth theory, evident Martian writing on a meteorite in Rochester, N.Y., electricity as the basis of all weight (supported by his experience of being borne aloft in a tornado), etc.

Goodwin, Rev. T[homas] A.The Duty of Literary Men. An Address Before the Indiana Branch of the Society of Alumni of the Indiana Asbury University [wrapper title]. New York: Burnz & Co., Publishers of Phonographic and Phonetic Books, 1878. First edition. And what is the great duty of the literary men of the Mississippi Valley? Spelling reform—or as Goodwin would have it, “a more formidabl rong than African Slavery ever woz.” The publisher, Eliza Burnz, is an overlooked figure in American reform—an English-born American abolitionist, woman’s suffrage activist and pioneer stenographer, she was so wedded to the cause of spelling reform that she named her daughter Foneta.

[Carpenter, W[illiam].One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe. Dedicated to R. A. Proctor, Esq.... “Upright, Downright, Straightforward.” Baltimore: Printed and Published by the Author, 1885. “That the Earth is an extended plane, stretched out in all directions away from the central North, over which hangs, for ever, the North Star, is a fact which all falsehoods that can be brought to bear upon it with their dead weight will never overthrow: it is God’s Truth the face of which, however, man has the power to smirch all over with his unclean hands.”

Fitch, Theodore.Our Paradise Inside the Earth. [Council Bluffs, Iowa?: Theodore Fitch, ca. 1950]. First edition? An uncommon work from Brother Theodore Fitch (1893-1991) of Council Bluffs, a zealous gospel worker evidently allied with the Oneness Pentecostal movement... Fitch argues here—with much Biblical support—that the earth is hollow and open at the poles, and with a habitable interior peopled by a pre-Adamic fallen race of small brown men who pilot the flying saucers which were then plaguing the nation. “Before the flood these very angels and their offspring worshiped Satan and sex. They have never changed one bit. The things we hear about the little brown men and women are not fit to print.” Happily, the saints shall soon possess this interior Kingdom—to the obvious betterment of the human race: “Let us suppose that YOU will be preaching a revival in St. Louis... Nowadays, it usually takes 30 to 60 minutes to travel from home to our work. But, in a flying saucer you could travel to your home in the New Jerusalem in less than 30 minutes.”

Patterson, Rowley.Rowley Patterson’s Grand Theory of the Progression of Mankind, Animals & Planets. Dansville, N.Y.: Bunnell & Oberdorf, 1885. First edition. An argument that man was first created on a lesser planet in the solar system and that progressive evolution will lead our species from planet to planet until the coming of the final judgment on Jupiter... “My firm belief is that the three rings of and eight moons of Saturn are Paradise, the place that Christ and the thief went after their crucifixion, and the place where the good folks stay till they are wanted on another planet.”

Ardetha, the Voice from Atlantis.

Fuller, G[eorge] W[ashington] and F. Corden White.Ardetha, the Teacher. A Series of Lessons Given through the Mediumship of F. Corden White to G. W. Fuller. Prescottville, Penn.: Published by G. W. Fuller, (1902). First edition. “The name of the Author is Ardetha. She was one of the inhabitants of the Continent of Atlantis, which was sunk beneath the Atlantic Ocean by some great cataclysm, many thousand years ago. I first met her in July 1898, when she materialized at a seance given by Mrs. Effie Moss, and said she was my guide.” Sanborn, Arthur. The Long Lost Land. Billerica Massachusetts. Private Copy. [Billerica, Mass.?: n. p., before 1939]. First edition. “If the question is put—‘Where, in all the world, is the spot most favorable to the existence and development of the human race?’ the answer must be, without a dissenting voice—‘The region of the Great Lakes of America.’” The four-part river of Eden is identified as the Great Lakes, Adam and Eve were residents on the shores of Lake Huron, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was the wild American grape, the flaming sword was a natural gas vent near Saginaw, the Deluge was caused by the gravitational influence of the planet Vulcan (now in the asteroid belt), etc.

Health Appliance Co.Health . . . A Treatise for Men Only. Showing How to Restore Complete Manhood, in all That Term Implies, by a Single Natural System of Home Treatment. San Francisco: Health Appliance Co., 1904. First edition. “It is a well established scientific fact that all our great statesmen, orators, ministers, musicians, financiers, pugilists, etc., are men of STRONG SEXUAL POWERS. Well developed sexual organs manifest themselves in the clear, ringing voice, the glossy hair, the sparkling eye, personal magnetism, and force of character.” An uncommon and extensive advertisement and trade catalog for penis enlargement, impotency treatment and prostate health, all easily obtained from the Health Appliance Co. with any of its various models of Dr. Lawrence’s Improved Vacuum Developers (now with the “Perfect Diaphragm”). Includes graphic illustrations on the proper use of the company’s products.

Weltmer, Prof. S[idney] A[bram]. The Weltmer Method of Absent Treatment. Parsons, Kansas: Foley R’y Printing Co., 1898. First edition. “The only method on earth that will cure sexual decline is the Magnetic or Mental Method of treatment. I have cured thousands of cases of the worst character, and after the persons had taken barrels of medicine and thus broken down their entire nervous systems. There is no good reason why a man should suffer with this kind of weakness and if he but knew it, he could cure himself much quicker than I can. If every man knew what I know, he need not suffer with weakness 24 hours.” The terms for treatment here are $5 per month, payable in advance.

Richard Griffin, the Bug-House Poet.

Griffin, Richard.Bug House Poetry: The Complete Works of... New York: n. p.],(1919). Second edition, expanded, of the collected works of the eccentric Bug House poet (expanded over the 293-page edition of 1917). The latter-day discovery of Griffin as a sort of lunatic crusticidal Dadaist generally dates from the two brief appreciations published by Eric Korn in the Times Literary Supplement in 1986 (indeed, it is Korn to whom we are indebted for that characterization), though later appreciations in scattered literary journals would suggest a small coterie of enthusiasts has existed since at least the early 1970s.

Brief extracts do scant justice to this enigmatic poet who went forth with a facile pen and somewhat fevered imagination; his minor epic “The Lobster’s Gizzard” recounts the murky quest of one Mike O’Hara to scale the Hill of Tara at the behest of a wizard to consume the gizzard of a magical lobster, while other pieces touch (in Griffin’s strange way) on violence, political corruption, Mormons and fashion. Most, however, defy easy categorization—viz. “The Elm of Nax” (“The famous tree is spelled either Nax or Nacks. I use both ways,” notes Griffin) or “Notional Nimrod” (“Under the sod / Notional Rod / Nimrod poor clod / In his green pod— / Say—does he fry? / I don’t know, why, / Do You?”). Evidence abounds that Griffin spent time in an institution; the lengthy poem “Water on the Brain” makes detailed reference to life in “the captivating nuttery.”

Page from Man v' Ape in the Play of Ear-Ce-Rammed.

[Samuels, Philip].Man v’ Ape in the Play of Ear-Ce-Rammed. (Boston): Samuels-Bacon, ‘sam ls-ot, (1933). First edition. A prime contender for the title of most eccentric entry in the annals of the Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, Man v’ Ape is Samuels’ heavily (even tortuously) annotated edition of Hamlet. Using a numeric cipher and a host of obscure symbolic, linguistic and Biblical interpretations, he here proves that Francis Bacon had prophesized the coming of Philip Samuels as the incarnation of Jehovah, and that Samuels is charged with leading the Jews to an independent state in Palestine. Among the many arguments: attacks on Darwin that give this volume its name (“The image of God did bury Malthus-Darwin under a heap of dust never to rise again”), allusions to Hamlet’s encoded attacks on the Roman Catholic Church (“Ham=21. Ham plus Pope=70,” etc.) and even perhaps the murky claim that Samuels is Bacon reborn.

Houser, J[ames] A[lfred], M.D. Sparking in the Dark. Arcadia, Ind.: n. p., 1878. First edition. The moderately slangy title of Houser’s work is perhaps best explained by his contention that “society would be far better, morally, if calls upon young ladies, by gentlemen, were made in daylight, or when in the evening would end at ordinary bed-time, there can be no doubt.”

A curious work of marriage reform, dress reform (he has sharp words on tight lacing) and divorce reform (“As long as persons are dissatisfied with their husbands or wives they will ask divorces and have them, and so they should”) from this phrenologist, lecturer and proto-eugenicist. While Houser seems resigned to the foibles of human sexuality (“There is nothing more reasonable than that every man and woman wants some person to love and caress, and if that person is not the husband or wife it will be another”) he certainly wastes no sympathy on those who are the ruin of young women:

“I once met a man that had slain the seducer of his innocent daughter, and as I shook his hand with the warmest grasp of friendship, I took off my hat to do him especial honor for his noble deed. The State should give that man a golden medal, with engraved upon it ‘Hero!’ and when he dies should build him a monument, and upon it place a majestic lion, by his side a torn and bleeding lamb, and near by a dead tiger.”

• • •

After the laughter subsides you will recognize certain patterns emerging from this group. Religio-political-conspiracy, sexual anxiety, anti-immigration, anti-science, the righteousness of the just, the out of this world (and inside of it) are themes as emotionally charged now as they were when these books were written by their crackpot authors. (Crackpot Lit. is a close cousin of Nutcase Lit., the terms often used interchangeably). Americans do not have the market cornered on nutcase thinking but our national ethos of rugged, if often stubbornly wacky, individualism, in concert with the First Amendment and Internet, has provided us with special license to spout whatever nutty theories are caroming around our craniums to an audience; our only fear is to be ignored.

Fringe thinking has always had a comfy home in the U.S. That it has mainstreamed into American culture is, however, a phenomenon new to us and worthy of study. The bar for true nutcase has risen. As Rare Book Special Collections librarians have acquired most if not all the standard and non-standard warhorses of fiction and non-fiction, they are beginning to creatively look beyond the traditional to form collections from disparate books within their holdings and with new acquisitions that when gathered together reveal an overlooked yet compelling story. Nutcase literature is surely an area worthy of investigation, for collectors, scholars, and curators alike. It is at once an extremely humorous and deadly serious subject.

Yet it is a genre that will undoubtedly resist attempts to circumscribe it; it is too subjective. But that, in the end, is what will make it a rewarding area to take an interest in and collect. As always, the best collections reflect the collector as well as the books collected.

It is wise to remember that one's man's nutcase is another man's prophet. Just be wary of the guy who thinks prophet, whatever the prophecy.

__________

Booktryst invites readers to submit their own favorite nutcase books in the Comments section below. We can't get enough of this stuff; hoping you feel the same.

__________

With thanks to Garrett Scott for images from Printing and the Mind of Cranks.